City of Fae by Pippa DaCosta - Review

                                          

Release Date: May 7, 2015

From the moment Alina touches London's hottest fae superstar, breaking one of the laws founded to protect all of her kind, her fate – and the fae – close in.

Below ground, the fae High Queen plots to claim the city as her own and places her pawns, ready for the battle to come. A battle she cannot lose, but for one small problem – Alina. There are four ancient keepers powerful enough to keep the queen in her prison. Three are dead. One remains … And to fight back, Alina risks sacrificing everything she has come to love.

This New Adult urban fantasy is packed with action and suspense and will have you yearning for more forbidden fae romance.

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City of Fae is an urban fantasy full of action, romance, and creepy spiders. While it takes a while for the plot to really get going, once it does, it goes with a vengeance. Alina is a sassy and hilarious character in the midst of a sexy Fae rockstar and a  Fae-driven apocalypse and its as epic as it sounds.

It took a little while for me to really get into the story. Everything seems a little coincidental and rudderless for the first few chapters, Alina lusting after a story for a newspaper she no longer works for and Reign infuriatingly just showing up all the time for seemingly no reason. However, once Alina delves fully into Reign and the world of the Fae, the story picks up and wouldn't let me go (seriously, I was almost late for class).

Alina is a wonderful character, full of sass and wit and unwilling to fall prey to the fascination most humans have towards the mysterious and magical Fae. Reign, or Sovereign, is every bit the aristocratic, mysterious Fae that Alina believes him to be, at least in the beginning. City of Fae is filled with a wonderful cast of well developed and complex characters that will make you root for them and cry over the choices they have to make. 

The workings of the Fae, while still left a little vague, are interesting and original. Despite being called City of Fae, the story actually takes place in London, with the revelation that the magical land of Faerie exists somewhere else (somewhere we may get to see someday?!).  I loved the lore surrounding the Queen, and Pippa knows, apparently, that the way to make any creature terrifying and evil is to make her affiliated with spiders. 

City of Fae is a thrilling adventure into a world not quite like our own, where three touches can kill you and the biggest rockstar might not be human. Alina is sassy and hilarious, Reign is sexy and mysterious, and the two of them together make an fun and kick-ass pair. The stakes are high and time is limited as Alina and Reign race against the clock to try and save not only the city and everyone in it, but themselves - and their possible future together - as well. 

*I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Find out more about Pippa and her books here: http://www.pippadacosta.com

Born in Tonbridge, Kent in 1979, Pippa's family moved to the South West of England where she grew up amongst the dramatic moorland and sweeping coastlands of Devon & Cornwall. With a family history brimming with intrigue, complete with Gypsy angst on one side and Jewish survivors on another, she has the ability to draw from a patchwork of ancestry and use it as the inspiration for her writing. Happily married and the Mother of two little girls, she resides on the Devon & Cornwall border.

Happy Reading! 

Jasmine

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City of Fae by Pippa DaCosta - Review

Unborn by Amber Lynn Natusch - Review

Born into mystery. Shackled to darkness…

Khara has spent centuries discovering everything about the Underworld―except her place in it. But when she’s ripped from her home, solving the riddle of her origins becomes more important than ever. With evil stalking her through the dark alleys of Detroit, she finds salvation from an unlikely source: a group of immortal warriors sworn to protect the city. Khara needs their help to unravel the tangled secrets of who and what she is—secrets many seem willing to kill for. But time is running out, and the closer she gets to the truth, the closer necessity binds her to an arrogant fallen angel.

Can their shaky alliance withstand that which threatens her, or will her soul fall victim to the unholy forces that hunt her―those that seek the Unborn?

From the author of the bestselling Caged series comes a pulse-pounding new romantic urban fantasy series.

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Unborn was new series to me and Amber Lynn Natusch a new author. The premise of Unborn and the world created is deep and interesting and is complete with a large cast of characters. While there were parts were a little slow and Khara's voice sometimes a little dry, the story as a whole was interesting and an enjoyable read. 

There is certainly no lack of supernatural creatures and lore in this series - demons and Greek gods and angels and other original creatures all coincide (though not at all peacefully) with one another. I really enjoyed learning about the world and how all of the supernatural elements work with the modern Detroit setting. I thought the world was deep and that Khara's place in between all the forces at work was interesting.

I loved the tensions between Khara and the group of hunters and Oz, the not-quite-fallen angel. While the complexities of Khara's birth and the battle's between all these supernatural elements are at the heart of the conflict, I was really drawn to the development of Khara's relationship with all these characters (cough especially Oz cough).

Khara as a character is complex. Her voice is a little hard to like, sometimes, just because it sounds a little archaic and straight-forward. While it fits with her character, it gets a little taxing sometimes. However, as the novel moved forward and she learned more about the world in which she had been thrust, her voice grew on me. Likewise, there are a lot of characters introduced in the beginning of the book and while they all have unique voices and purposes within the group, it became difficult for me to keep them all apart. There are also times throughout the book that seem to lose the pace a little bit, with long explanations of lore or with just the constant barrage of angry critters trying to get at Khara. 

Overall, Unborn is an interesting, if not a tad predictable, action-packed paranormal fantasy, with a strong female lead with a lot to learn and a large party of dudes willing to help teach her everything she needs to know. I'm excited to see where the rest of the series leads and how Khara (and her relationship with her newfound team) will develop.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

You can find her and info on her books here: http://amberlynnnatusch.com/

If you’re dying to know more about me, allow me to put you at ease. I’m a sharp-tongued, sarcastic cancer, who loves vegetable smoothies, winter storms, and the word portfolio. I should NEVER be caffeinated, and require at least eight hours of sleep to even resemble a human being. At thirty-four, I just now feel like I can keep a straight face while saying the word “rectum” (which is actually a huge lie because I just laughed out loud while reading this to my husband). I live with my iPod firmly affixed to my body, drive too fast, and laugh/cry at inappropriate times.

Happy Reading!

Jasmine

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Unborn by Amber Lynn Natusch - Review

Curse Unbroken by Cecy Robson - Early Review

Release Date: March 10, 2015

Fans of Keri Arthur will love the Weird Girls, four sisters cursed with supernatural powers. In Cecy Robson’s latest urban fantasy romance, the search is on for an unholy grail, while evil is licking its wounds—and looking for revenge.

The preternatural world is changing. After a massive magical throwdown tore apart the established order, the dark elements are rebuilding their ranks unopposed. Celia Wird’s world is changing, too. She’s the mate of the pureblood were Aric, and his Warriors are honor-bound to protect her family as she and her sisters recover from unimaginable horrors.

Celia hesitates to reveal the true extent of the Wird sisters’ trauma, but they aren’t the only ones keeping secrets: Aric and the werewolf Elders are tracking a stone that grants limitless power. So is a tough coven of witches. Then Misha, a master vampire with his own plans for the stone, sends Celia after it. Can she and the vamps beat both the weres and the witches to the treasure before it falls into the wrong hands?

Fearing for Celia’s safety, Aric begs her to stay out of the hunt. What they don’t realize is that they’re the ones being hunted. But Celia’s ready to prove that she’s not easy prey.

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Hum baby. If you thought that Celia's life couldn't get any more complicated, you thought wrong. Luckily, we have one amazing heroine and her band of possessive wolves and crazy sisters to help her out. 

While I was finally wondering if I'd reached my limit with terrible things happening to Celia, Robson handled the endless obstacles well. It helps that her main character is so strong and just as fed up with all the trouble as the reader. I liked seeing her reach a final breaking point - how she finally took control, over the Pack, over Misha and his vampires, over witches (yes, witches), over everyone who is in the way of her and her happiness with Aric. It was wonderful to see her grow (who knew she still had space!?) and really come into her own as a woman and a woman in a leadership role, however unwilling she may be to take up that mantle.

Celia and Aric's relationship is wonderful and it's nice to see them presented as a united front rather than separate. While everything around them is up in the air and in chaos, it is refreshing and lovely to see how they approach of this stuff together. That being said, my heart broke a little over the lasting consequences of the A Cursed Bloodline, and while A Curse Unbroken had an ending that I am very pleased with, I am happy that the rest of the weird girls will be explored more in Taran's own series. I have always loved how developed and wonderful Celia's sisters and the secondary characters in the series were, and I can't wait to see more of them. I also enjoyed learning more about the witches and their relationships to the other supernatural groups in the Weird Girls' world, especially since details about the sisters' curse are revealed.

A Curse Unbroken is high action, high romance, high stakes finale. It promises all of the struggle and sacrifice as the previous books, as well as the swoon-worthy romance and laugh out loud comedy. This is one of my favorite urban fantasy series and this finale did not disappoint. It was a joy to read and while I am sad to say goodbye to Celia's voice, I am happy with the knowledge that my time with this lovable, dysfunctional, and weird family isn't over.

*I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Learn more about Cecy Robson and her books here: http://www.cecyrobson.com/index.html

Cecy (pronounced Sessy) Robson is the Penguin Random House author of the Shattered Past new adult contemporary romance series and the award-winning Weird Girls urban fantasy romance series. A self-proclaimed professional napper, Cecy counts among her talents a jaw-dropping knowledge of useless trivia, the ability to make her hair big, and a knack for breaking into song, despite her family’s vehement protests. A registered nurse, full-time writer, wife, and mother living in the South, Cecy enjoys spending time with her family and silencing the yappy characters in her head by telling their stories. 

Happy Reading! 

Jasmine

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Curse Unbroken by Cecy Robson - Early Review